Banias and Nimrud

So the next morning I woke up again bright and early to be dropped off at the same junction. Banias is a bit farther down the road from Dan and, since I'd now had a couple good experiences with hitch hiking, I just stuck my finger out (you point to the road in Israel rather than raise your thumb) and waited for a ride. Some guys were nice enough to pick me up after a couple exasperating minutes, and I was on my way to Banias.

Now, to understand how my day went, you'll have to understand the topography. The drop-off junction and Dan sit on the northern end of the Hula Valley, and then to the east the ground begins to rise up toward the slopes of Mount Hermon and the Golan Heights. At the lowest point are the Banias Falls, a magnificent waterfall along the Banias Stream that runs south from the springs and into the Jordan River. Farther up are the springs themselves, at the site of Banias (the shrine of the god Pan) and first century Caesarea Philippi. Then the foothills of Mount Hermon really begin to rise until you get up to the first peak, upon which towers Nimrud Fortress. So my day was all uphill- as you can see in the picture, taken from near the beginning at the falls with Nimrud on the high peak above. Yeah, I hiked that.

So at the ticket office to the park, they told me there was a trail from Banias Falls to the Banias Spring, and from there way up to Nimrud. So I just entered the park from there and set out. This turned out to be true, but only after a very long period of thinking it quite false. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I said, if Dan was Narnia, this was Middle Earth. Look at that waterfall! At the site I actually met two Israelis who I chatted with for a bit on the trail, and they took my picture at the viewing platform. The water was high and fast due to the great winter rains we've had here, a true blessing for this parched country. When it rains, you hold a party- water is just that important (and expensive) here.

So I headed up the trail to the springs, which was even more pleasant and wonder-filled than the paths around Dan. There was another flour mill, a Druze fellow selling 'Druze pita' nearby, and a Roman bridge. Now I've already been to Banias on this trip way back with my parents at AIT, but we missed what I think is one of the more interesting things at the site: the palace of Agrippa II.

While the site of the springs had long been a sacred place for the local people and associated with the satyr god Pan, the place only came to real prominence when Herod Philip inherited it in 4 BC upon the death of his father, Herod the Great. As Herod had built Caesarea Maritima as a luxurious palace and port city for himself, so his soon built a Caesarea- named Philippi after himself- as his capital for his northern territories (Herod Antipas, who executed John the Baptist and presided at Jesus' trial, would build his own cities, Sepphoris and Tiberias, the former of which I'll get to in another post). Thus the site became Caesarea Philippi, and this was the place where Peter made his great confession: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

After Herod Philip died in AD 34, the city was incorporated first into the territories of his nephew Marcus Julius Agrippa I (the Herod Agrippa I of the first half of Acts), and then into the Roman territories. His son, Agrippa II (of the second half of Acts), supported Rome during the Great Jewish Revolt. As a result, the city was gifted to him as a personal fiefdom. Pictured here are the ruins of his palace complex, discovered in the mid-90s and still under excavation.

So I passed pretty quickly past the site of the shrine, although I stopped to take a couple more pictures, and headed up the trail toward the lookout. At the lookout you can see down to the whole city, both the Banias Shrine and the palaces of Caesarea Philippi. In fact, you can see straight across to the waterfall.

The Banias Lookout is also the beginning of the trail that goes up the mountain from the springs to Nimrud. And indeed, there was a sign, 'To Nimrud,' and you could see the fortress towering in the distance. Unfortunately, there was no visible trail; rather, there was a lengthy field of ugly, jagged rocks which were nearly impossible to walk over. To make things worse, the sign pointed away from Nimrud, down the south side of the ridge, while the ridge line actually leading up to Nimrud was simply covered with more rocks. So I stuck a middle path between the two and headed out anyway.

This was probably a dumb idea, because after an hour I found myself near the bottom of the ridge near a large sheep pen. Dogs guarding the sheep noticed me and began barking and growling wildly, so I huffed and puffed my way back up toward the ridge, following very thin goat paths through the rocks. Then there were sticker bushes that I've since discovered gave me a bunch of tiny cuts on my hands, but I was far too tired at the time to notice.

I also came across some cows. I asked them directions, but they were not forthcoming.

Eventually, however, working my way back up to the top of the ridge, I found the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen: a white streak of paint with two red streaks paralleling it on either side. A trail marker! You can't imagine my relief.

After another hour of following this strangely well-marked trail, Nimrud loomed before me.
Nimrud, by the way, is not a genuine Crusader castle. That is not to say it didn't play a role in the Crusades, but rather that it was built and primarily used by the Muslims, not the Crusaders. Nonetheless it was quite impressive, spanning the length of the upper ridge at the peak of the mountain. There isn't too much to say about it, but it was a great reward after that grueling and doubt-filled hike.
So how did I get back? That wonderfully Middle Eastern combination of Providence and hospitality, of course.

Lo and behold, here at Nimrud, I ran into the same people I'd met down at the Banias Falls earlier in the day. Seeing that I was pretty tired, they said they'd give me a ride wherever I needed to go if I could just help them figure out a couple things about the fortress. Naturally, I had my Kindle on me with Jerome Murphy-O'Conner's Oxford Archaeological Guide to the Holy Land, and we found it in short order. After giving me a couple minutes to check out the fortress (which involved me virtually sprinting across the ridgeline to get from the fortress gate to the central keep), they drove me straight down the mountain and dropped me off at the junction where I was due to meet Libi.

All the doubt and worry came to nothing. It was an unbelievable day. I once again got to see everything I wanted to see, and experienced so much more.

I also got the chance to spend a nice relaxing evening at Libi's kibbutz, Lahavot Ha-Bashan. They had a falafel truck that comes in on Wednesdays, which was the perfect snack after the hike, and a bunch of dogs playing in the park with her daughter, Yarden (above).

There was this small dog, Bobo, who seemed like he needed a pet. So I bent down to scratch him, and he went after my hat! Much to Maria's dismay, the hat still functions, and as long as it can actually stay on my head, I'm going to wear it.